Review for Blood

Introduction

MVM continue their sojourn into the world of live action cinema, with their fifth offering from the land of the rising sun. So far it's worked out that David Beckett has reviewed MVM's horror output, while I have handled their Japanese cinema. When it came to Blood, a Japanese horror movie, it was just a matter of luck as to who would review it, although whether it was bad luck or good, I didn't realise until I watched the film. MVM have had a promising start with their Japanese live action releases, with the thoroughly entertaining Cutie Honey, the inventive Dororo, and the schlocky Sinking of Japan. Then last month Geisha Assassin showed up and let the side down, both in terms of presentation and content. I was hoping that was just an aberration, and that Blood would bring things back on track. Then the check disc arrived, with a letterbox transfer…


Hoshino was a hotshot detective in the Tokyo police force, but one who made a few too many waves. As a reward he got shunted to the Cold Case Squad, a dead end office where the unsolved cases wind up. His duty now is to sift through the cases before the statute of limitations expires, in the hope of turning up a prosecution. What his superiors really want him to do is to shut up and stay put, but even in the stifling summer heat, he's still motivated to solve crimes. He's latched onto a 14-year-old murder case, a maid who was slaughtered in Setagaya, and he's determined to follow it through to the end. The one remaining lead points to the then owner of the mansion where the murder occurred, an elegant ageless woman named Miyako Roznberk. Hoshino goes there to question her, and suddenly she has an attack of memory, and names Ukyo Kuronuma as the murderer. Hoshino sneaks into the Ukyo's place of work to spy on the reclusive businessman, only to see him with his fangs clamped on the jugular of a nubile, and soon to be dead young girl. Hoshino doesn't know it, but he's gotten in the middle of a 140 year old lovers tiff, and the last thing he needs right now is a love bite from the manipulative Miyako.

The Disc

Blood gets a low-resolution NTSC-PAL standards conversion, and a letterbox transfer to boot. As you may guess, clarity isn't this disc's strong suit, and some occasionally impressive cinematography is wasted on this disc. Sound comes in the form of DD 2.0 Japanese, the dialogue is clear, the music forgettable, and the subtitles are burnt in, fortunately zoom friendly. Incidentally, I think the subtitler has been watching a little too much CSI, translating victim as 'vic'.

Extras on this disc amount to trailers only, two trailers and three TV spots for Blood, and two trailers for Dororo and Geisha vs. Ninjas (a.k.a. Geisha Assassin).

Conclusion

I wonder what the thinking was behind Blood. Actually I don't, as the thinking is quite obvious, after all a movie with a hard bitten detective, vampires, sword fighting, a film noir aesthetic, martial arts, and plenty of soft focus sex scenes, is bound to find an audience. It shouldn't be so much of an issue then that the film isn't all that good. But for some odd reason, I find that I am being niggled by that particular shortcoming. I want my films to be interesting damn it! I want a good story, I want good acting, and I want to be entertained, not anaesthetized. Blood came perilously close to sending me to the land of nod yesterday, and I have to admit that it was only the physical attributes of the lead actress, on show regularly through this film, that gave me enough of a jolt to prevent my snores.


I'm wary of discussing the story further, especially as there is not much more to the film than I've stated above. I did get the feeling, as the end credits rolled, that the whole exercise was ultimately pointless. There weren't any interesting characters, the story didn't really develop beyond the initial premise, and the film's conclusion was such that even if you had developed an interest in a character, and were invested in seeing their story resolved, you'd still wind up disappointed by a conclusion that succeeds in little, and satisfies absolutely nothing. The acting performances don't do the admittedly impressive production values justice, with the lead actor striking a single note of nonplussed throughout the film, while as for the leading lady Aya Sugimoto… Well, she looks absolutely divine in a white satin dress, and even more impressive out of it, which happens on a regular enough frequency through this film to make it a selling point, and as for her acting skills… two out of three isn't bad. She is a proponent of the 'Smell the fart' school of acting, and once I had ascertained that, keeping a straight face became impossible; the kiss of death to any moody film noir vampire story, I assure you.


Personally, if I never saw Blood again, it would be too soon. But I do realise that with its 15 rating, it is aimed at a wholly different audience. I can forgive the bad acting, the waste of a story, and the loss of 85 minutes of my life, because of the hefty proportion of soft focus, soft-core action, and the almost constant vision of vampire norks, all of which will serve to satisfy a teen male audience. This movie comes with a way-hey! endorsement, but the letterbox presentation is unforgivable.